06.22.15
Gemini version available ♊︎Microsoft Injects Its Proprietary Software Into Free Software Stacks and the Open Container Project
“The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
Summary: The Microsoft plot to paint its proprietary software ‘open’ is largely successful, as even the Linux Foundation relents on defensive antagonism and gives up on software freedom
SEVERAL weeks ago we wrote about the openwashing of “Edge” (not to be confused with Ubuntu Edge), which is a Microsoft rebrand essentially, pretending that Microsoft embraces “Open Source” on the Web. Microsoft is still openwashing proprietary software by virtually googlebombing [1, 2, 3] “open source edge” etc. When searching for “open source windows” you might expect ReactOS, but that’s no longer the case, surely not after a misleading media blitz. Here is an example from a Microsoft propaganda site. It says: “Microsoft now makes all these feature demos available as open-course on GitHub, so that the developers can get them hands-on to learn more about it. The sole aim of presenting the Test Drive Site is to help developers play around with the new interface and its features and to get hands-on review and endways experience before the official launch of Windows 10 in July 29.”
“Are all these recent hires from Microsoft making the Linux Foundation unable to say “no” to Microsoft?”The kind of openwashing extends from Edge (proprietary) to Vista 10 (also proprietary and definitely not free, no matter how many times Microsoft lies about the cost [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]). How can Microsoft get away with this? If people are passive enough, it might actually pass muster.
We have meanwhile found this new article titled “Install Microsoft Visual Studio Code on 32-bit Ubuntu Systems with Ubuntu Make 0.8.2″. It’s an article from a Linux site (Softpedia’s Linux section) which tactlessly helps Microsoft entrap GNU/Linux users. That’s the second time in about a month and once again, installing proprietary software from Microsoft is described as a reasonable thing to do (or worth doing, like installing Microsoft’s malware Skype on GNU/Linux). Visual Studio Code is proprietary and it may have malicious antifeatures that no audit can yet demonstrate. That’s aside from the fact that helping Microsoft is unwise. The editor promotes .NET and other Microsoft lock-in. GNU/Linux already had plenty of fantastic code editors, most of which are Free software and framework-neutral.
Speaking of helping Microsoft, watch the Linux Foundation’s Open Container Project — like others before it — getting infiltrated by Microsoft upon launch:
Microsoft and a bunch of its biggest competitors, including Google and Amazon, have joined forces for the Open Container Project, a non-profit organization housed under the Linux Foundation – the governing body of the Linux open source operating system, which Microsoft once considered its biggest competitor.
The Linux Foundation needs to watch out as it foolishly opens the lion’s mouth wide open yet again, as if just to look at what’s deep inside the lion’s throat (lots of carcasses of other prior fools like Corel, Yahoo!, Nokia, and Novell). Microsoft still wants to destroy GNU/Linux and its participation in the Open Container Project is about promoting Windows (containers greatly contribute to the obsolescence of Windows, according to a new Red Hat study). What was the Linux Foundation thinking in this case? Are all these recent hires from Microsoft making the Linux Foundation unable to say “no” to Microsoft? █
“We [Microsoft] believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft
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